NBA: From Barkley to LeBron, I'm Sick and Tired of "He Didn't Win a Ring"

As an NBA fan who can't make a point in a debate without breaking my argument down to a hair, I'll tell you this: it has been one exhausting year.

Of course it all started with the Miami thing (I refuse to employ the "D" word ever again lest my brain melt.) I became so disillusioned with the state of basketball that I had to break down—to everyone with ears, in minute historical and philosophical detail—precisely why this team was a sin.

God help you if you tried to debate against me.

The argument I've heard most frequently, of course, was the no-brainer that he needs to win championships. Look at all the guys nobody remembers because they didn't win a ring. They then proceed to reel off the same no-brainers: Ewing, Miller, Barkley, Malone, Stockton, et al.

I don't know about you, but it seems to me those guys are pretty well remembered regardless of their naked fingers. Seems to me that Steve Nash will probably be too... Nowitzki and Kidd would have been (yeah boyyy!)

All I'm saying is in my book, this whole "didn't win a ring" label is overblown. The people who hold it as the de facto truth should think about how unforgiving that logic is to players who by all other measures are in the 98th percentile all-time.

What about a guy who made the Finals a couple of times? Should that not soften the knock of not winning it all?

When I hear "he didn't win a ring," it comes with this image of a guy who led his team nowhere. I'm sorry, but does anybody watch basketball anymore?

Wasn't anybody watching when Patrick Ewing pushed the almighty Bulls to the brink, then later took his Knicks to Game 7 of the Finals? Isn't that why we remember him among the greats regardless?

Didn't Charles Barkley win an MVP and lead the Suns to the Finals in 1993? Didn't Stockton and Malone twice lead the Jazz to the Finals after being mainstays atop the West for years prior? Didn't Reggie Miller push the Bulls to seven games in the East Finals one year, then make the Finals a bit later?  

That clearly happened, didn't it? And how many other Conference Finals were these people involved in combined? Like two-hundred? *

Then why everybody wants to treat the annals of NBA history like they exist solely as a system of checkboxes, is beyond me. It's like "All-Star Games? Check... MVP? Check... Championship? Ooooooh, sorry. Next..."

Now say what you want about a Tracy McGrady; not getting out of the first round, that's leading a team nowhere (sorry T-Mac, thanks for the highlights.)

But continuously getting far in the Playoffs, or even dare I say it, requiring no less than Michael Jordan to keep you from a championship, should be right up there with actually winning a dang ring.

Everybody does realize that there's only one Larry O'Brien trophy per year, and that we routinely see multiple-time champions, right? Doesn't that math kind of tell you something? It tells me that there are only so many of these A++'s to go around no matter how undeniably great a given player's career was.

Reggie Miller is a shooting legend. Stockton and Malone were probably the best one-two punch ever. Patrick Ewing? Legend. Charles Barkley? Icon.

We all know this, we all hold them high in our memories, and we all watched as they took their teams to great heights throughout the years. But they all ran into those darn Bulls. So that's a smudge on their careers? Please.

At best it's an asterisk in their universally acknowledged stellar resumes.

Conversely, the mere fact of getting a ring should not be the instant merit badge it's made out to be. I remember and respect Gary Payton for leading a great Seattle team throughout the 90's, but I really don't think two pennies of the ring he won as a B-teamer with Miami. Just the jewelry alone is overrated.

Plus, Robert Horry. I rest my case.

You have a great career and win multiple rings, sure, that actually is a whole other level. That's why MJ is MJ, and Kobe is now grabbing at his laces. But how does winning one ring so decisively outweigh coming repeatedly just shy of it? 15 playoff wins counts for nothing?

I'm not the type to preach, but I seriously lament the fact that I'm apparently alone in thinking this. Perhaps if more people thought of NBA championships this way, maybe our former golden child would not have felt such soul-crushing pressure to go out and get a ring even if it kills us all.

Maybe that time he took Cleveland to the Finals—pretty much single-handedly—should have counted for more in everybody's eyes, instead of us going "well, you lost, didn't you?" Then at least the guy wouldn't have had this whole "please don't look at me fail" mentality, and he wouldn't have felt like he needed to do the unthinkable for us all to respect him.

Hell, by now he'd have the credit of two Finals appearances (albeit minus his recent Copperfield antics,) and he wouldn't be texting Dwight Howard, which I suspect is all he's been doing at the expense of food and sleep since late last Sunday.

Plus, to be honest, we also wouldn't have this running fallacy that when LeBron finally cracks that egg just once, he's completely welcome among the greats. To me there's something dead wrong with that. I need to see more, but that's another topic entirely.

I'm wondering what you think about it, but personally I feel like if everybody was a little more reasonable with the championship grading curve, we'd all still have a LeBron James we could cheer for. I sure I wish I did...

*actual number inflated for dramatic effect.